You Want a Tough Guy, Pay Attention to This

Everybody wants to be tough in October. Everybody wants to be the player who fights hardest and best when the hardest and best is demanded.

Nobody wants to be Bill Buckner.

But October has a way of separating the tough from the squishy, and here’s what we learned this weekend, when everything started boiling:

Pedro Martinez, of course, is all-time tough. The Boston ace didn’t have his best fastball on Saturday--Darren Dreifort throws harder--but his eyes told his teammates, the Yankees, and the audience, that Game 3 at Fenway Park was his.

Roger Clemens? As great as he has been, matched against Martinez, Clemens has a toughness deficit. This isn’t his first playoff blowup, but, with the buildup and the noise and the Boston boos, this was his loudest and most memorable. When he goes to the Hall of Fame, we’ll still be talking about this one.

Nomar Garciaparra plays baseball like a tough-neck, and it’s a joy to watch.

David Justice is far from tough. He has had a nice career, but asking out of the Indian lineup in a deciding Game 5 against Boston suffering from a . . . stiff neck?

Mike Piazza is tough-skinned. You know somebody has something to prove when he stays in a game after a solid home-plate conking.

Piazza has a tough road to travel. He can’t seem to draw the right pitcher at the right time, and Todd Pratt has more career big hits in October.

Florida State is tough-minded. The Seminoles might not win the national title if they lose Peter Warrick for good, but they sure haven’t felt sorry for themselves since his suspension.

USC is clearly not tough-minded. The Trojans might have the best talent in the soft Pacific 10, and they show it every first half. Then the fourth quarter hits, they stick their fists in the air, and they crawl into fetal positions.

Randall Cunningham--miraculous career comeback, swift tumble back a year later--is very tough to figure.

Steve Young? Probably too tough for his own good.

THE BIG PICTURE

You probably have to go back to the prehistoric, pre-Terry Donahue, pre-John McKay days--before any current Trojan or Bruin was born--to find a single Saturday that was as doubly devastating for L.A. college football as the one just witnessed.

UCLA: stopped cold by California, shut out for the first time in five years, and dropped closer to last place than bowl eligibility.

Is this how you celebrate the rebirth of the Bruin defense?

USC: embarrassed by Notre Dame’s comeback after holding two 21-point leads, flirting with its own bowl mortality, and forced to face piercing questions about heart and coaching.

Was the Trojans’ best-played game of the season (for two-plus quarters) also its most dispiriting?

You didn’t think this was going to be a glory season for either team, but you probably thought that neither team would be in critical condition by mid- October, either.

So, where do the two schools go from here?

Trojans: Six games left--Stanford, Cal, Arizona State, Washington State, UCLA and Louisiana Tech--and USC must win four of them to make it to a bowl.

Carson Palmer may or may not be available for the last two games, and Coach Paul Hackett may or may not desperately need him.

Bruins: Four games left--Oregon State, Arizona, Washington and USC--and UCLA must go 3-1 to qualify for a bowl.

DeShaun Foster may or may not be available soon, but, in the parity-clogged Pac-10, Saturday’s matchup with the Beavers shapes up as a bowl eliminator.

El Paso or bust!

WEEKEND TALKING POINTS

1. Sergio Garcia: Heaved his shoe into gallery after errant tee shot. Getting in early crowd-control practice for that next Ryder Cup in U.S.

2. Wilt Chamberlain: 2 titles, 7 foot 1, 33 in a row, 100 points, 20,000 women . . . Of all the milestone numbers that marked the man, most important is 1, as in, there will never be another.

3. San Francisco 49ers: George Seifert wins 100th game against them, Steve Young isn’t quarterbacking them, Eddie DeBartolo doesn’t own them and mostly, you can’t even recognize them.

4. St. Louis Rams, 5-0 and roaring: Kurt Warner deserves it. Georgia Frontiere definitely does not.

5. Bill Bavasi’s e-mail campaign vs. new Nike-designed Laker uniforms: “Excuse me, but the GM who didn’t trade for Mark McGwire and thought Ken Hill was a pitching savior should leave our decisions alone, you think? Best, PhilKnight@swoosh.com.”

6. Good luck, Michael Cooper: Is it true Johnny Buss warmly introduced him as the next future ex-Spark coach?

7. Ohio State’s John Cooper: Before the Penn State loss, Buckeye coach said that unless the Nittany Lions falter, “we can’t win.” Actually was paraphrasing less famous “Lose one for the Gipper” speech.

8. Shortstop Alex Rodriguez: The bidding starts at $125 million. What’ll be bigger grosser in 2002, A-Rod or the next “Star Wars” prequel?

9. Eagles to L.A.: It’s the hot Philadelphia rumor. Owner Jeffrey Lurie needs a new ballpark, used to be a Hollywood producer. Also, 99% of NFL players will chip in if it means no more Veterans Stadium turf.

10. Curses, curses: Thanks to Boston mythologists, everybody knows about Red Sox selling Babe Ruth. But you never hear about the N.Y. mob boss, denied seats at Fenway, who uttered the fateful “Curse of the Gambino.”

LEADING QUESTIONS

Don’t you have to respect Fox’s devotion to building drama for the network’s real priorities?

Could you believe, in front of an eager nation, that Fox’s pregame show before the Clemens-Martinez matchup Saturday opened with about 2 1/2 minutes of pitching discussion?

Then went to 2 1/2 minutes of commercials?

Which led us to the attraction Fox really cared about, a 46-year-old smiling reverend from Knoxville, Tenn., interviewed by Fox’s smiling Steve Lyons and trying to throw a strike to win $1 million of a shaving company’s money?

Then throwing it so wide even Eric Gregg couldn’t call it a strike?

And wasn’t it nice that Fox committed more than three minutes of its pregame show to the precious promotion?

But if it was a choice between the wild reverend and additional time for Keith Olbermann, maybe we should all concede this one to the Fox producers?